Fairytales, Murders, and Mystrade, Oh My!
by Moonlite Knight
Summary: Written for the prompt: No one knows that Mycroft writes a series of children's books under a pseudonym, that is until they become the subject of serial murders throughout London. Lestrade and the Yard investigate.


**Fairytales, Murders, and Mystrade, Oh My!**

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Chapter 1

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If there was anyone to blame for Mycroft's current predicament, then it was Sherlock.

Sherlock had been a very picky little boy, in just about every aspect of his young life. Food, clothes, toys. Everything had to be a certain specific way or Sherlock would have nothing to do with.

It was cute when he was two. Watching a tiny boy lecturing adults three times his size on how the peas could not touch the carrots, or how red never, ever went with yellow, was oddly endearing. Everyone smiled and said it was a phase, one that he would grow out of in a few months. Mycroft still maintains that he was the only one who realized that this wasn't a phase. This was Sherlock, his genius baby brother, younger than him by seven long years, and he was not going to change.

When Sherlock turned three, he began to demand a story every night to get to sleep. He had taught himself how to read by then but he insisted that he be read to every night before he slept. If he didn't get his story, then he didn't go sleep. And he ensured that no one else in the house slept either. Since Mummy didn't have the health to read to him every night and Father didn't have the time, it fell upon Mycroft to ensure Sherlock went to sleep. He hadn't been happy with this new responsibility but he learned to adapt very quickly.

A person could only last so long without sleep.

But it wasn't particularly a hardship to have to read to his baby brother every night. Sherlock rarely lasted longer than an hour before he nodded off so Mycroft always got all the necessary hours of sleep that he needed. And story time was the only time that he could touch Sherlock without the danger of being bitten. Huddled together, side by side, on Sherlock's twin bed, with Sherlock trying to simultaneously lean close enough to see the pages of the book and stay back far enough so that they wouldn't be cuddling. Mycroft would never admit it out loud, but those moments were some of his fondest memories.

It was when Sherlock turned four and a half that the troubles began.

By that point, they had gone though all of the child appropriate (and some not entirely appropriate) books in the house. Mycroft hadn't particularly wanted to ask Father for money for a new book, so he picked out _Peter Pan, _a tale that Sherlock had seemed to particularly enjoy, from the library, intending to reread it.

Sherlock, however, had taken one look at the title when Mycroft brought it into his room and said, "No."

Mycroft had ignored him and proceeded to sit down and start reading only to have the book yanked from his grasp and thrown to the floor with another exclamation of "No!" followed by "I want a new story. Give me a new story!"

Tired and irritated and _eleven, _Mycroft had gotten up and walked out of the room without complying.

The resulting tantrum lasted all night and well into the morning.

Mycroft liked to think that he held his ground against his little brother for once. That he didn't succumb to the tear-stained face, and the puffy eyes and the absolutely devastated expression like he so often did back then. Sadly though, the night following the tantrum saw Mycroft with a new book and a decidedly lighter piggy bank.

The new book only lasted about a week and then Sherlock was back to demanding another new story. Mycroft had gone to Father that time, to ask for some money for one. Father had irately replied that there was a whole library full of books and they certainly didn't need more. So, Mycroft had gone back to the library and picked up one of Father's political books, hoping Sherlock wouldn't turn it down.

He didn't. Strangely enough, Sherlock found politics fascinating, and they made it through Sherlock's fifth year with those books.

On his sixth birthday however, while Mycroft was in the middle was reciting the legacy of some crooked political figure who had ended up being assassinated for some reason of another, Sherlock slammed the book shut, narrowly missing Mycroft's fingers.

"This is boring." He'd proclaimed. "Tell me a story, Mykof."

"I was-"

"No," Sherlock had cut him off. "_You _tell me a story."

Mycroft remembered staring blankly at his brother's expectant face before understanding what his brother wanted.

"No."

"Tell me a story."

"No. I have a perfectly good book right new Sherlock. I'm not making up a new one just because you said so."

Sherlock had tensed and straightened up, face twisted into a scowl.

Recognizing the signs of a tantrum (Sherlock had thankfully outgrown the tears component of them), Mycroft had opened his mouth and said the first thing that popped into his head.

"Brandon Wellfer was the most annoying boy you could ever meet, but he was also one of the smartest…"

And that was how the spark that fueled his moonlight career as an author was lit.

Writing down the stories had started out merely as a way to ensure that he never repeatted one. Sherlock, of course, remembered every single word from all the story times and was quick to point out if Mycroft was plagiarizing himself or someone else. In fact he took a vicious kind of pleasure in doing so, often working himself into a tantrum if the story of the night was even remotely similar to one Mycroft had told him before. Mycroft was forced to become more and more creative with his stories.

This system lasted for several more years, until Mycroft grew old enough to go to University. He wasn't sure who took his place reading to Sherlock, but by the time he came back for the holidays, Sherlock considered himself too old to be read to and all stories that he had scribbled down during his rare moments of free time in between classes and networking went unread.

That really should have the end of his career as a story teller.

Except it wasn't.

Sherlock may have stopped listening, but Mycroft did not stop creating stories and he continued to write them down. At first it was solely to get them out of the way and to clear his head for more important information. Then Sherlock, his baby brother, discovered drugs, and the stories became a way for him remember the little boy that would eagerly listen to his stories and would pinch him if Mycroft leaned too close and would, more often then not, doze off with his head on Mycroft's shoulder.

He wrote a lot during the Drug Years.

Despite all of the stories he had amassed over the years, Mycroft had never had any intention of publishing any of them.

In a way, Sherlock could be blamed for this too.

Anthea (not her real name, but the one she had asked him to call her by) had just started working for him then. She knew about Sherlock. She didn't know about the stories. Not until Mycroft came home one day to find his study completely and utterly trashed. Sherlock's revenge for ensuring that no dealer within a ten mile radius would sell to him.

There was a meeting that he had to get to, he'd only stopped at home to change, so he'd called Anthea and asked her to restore his study. He came back to find his study good as new, and Anthea seated on the floor, surrounded by his old notebooks, and completely engrossed with one.

Once he got over the embarrassment of somebody other than Sherlock reading his stories, and Anthea got over the embarrassment of being caught reading her boss's personal journals, Anthea began hinting that he should try publishing some of his stories.

Mycroft dismissed the idea immediately. His stories weren't fit reading material for anyone. They were just something he did to clear his head, to relax. They weren't something that should be published.

He expected the matter to end there, but to his surprise it didn't. Anthea seemed oddly reluctant to let it go. She never said it outright after the first time, but the implications that he publish were always there. Maybe it was because he missed his baby brother. Maybe it was some latent desire to get recognition for something that he had spent so much of this time on. But in the end Mycroft agreed.

He chose the pseudonym 'Mai Kroff'.

It was ridiculously sentimental of him, but he had only yesterday gone to Sherlock's apartment to discover that he had overdosed. He felt he could be forgiven given the circumstances.

Once she had his approval, Anthea produced a draft complete with artwork (which wasn't altogether that bad) and before the day's end, sent it to a company.

By the end of the week, Mai Kroff had a book to his name.

Within the month, he had two more.

By the end of the year, he had fans and fan mail and a horrifying revelation that his reader's thought he was female.

Well, at least the books could never be traced back to him then. No one would believe that a minor government official wrote children's books under a female identity.

All in all, Mycroft was perfectly content with remaining an anonymous, though well-liked, children's author.

It was Sherlock's fault that he was in danger of losing that anonymity.

Mycroft picked up his phone with a sigh. "Cancel my two clock." he said. "I suspect there will be more pressing matter to deal with this afternoon."

Anthea didn't ask why. No doubt, she already knew. "Should I send a car for him?"

"Please."

He hung up with a sigh and wished, not for the first time, that he had just slipped some liquor into Sherlock's milk when he began demanding original stories. Liquor would have knocked Sherlock right out and dealing without a hung-over Sherlock was definitely preferable to this.

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A/N: This was written for a prompt I saw a while ago (aka a year ago). I've lost the link to it, but once I find it, I'll post it here. I've finally managed to write more to this though, so I figured it would a good time to start posting it. Hoping to update within a few weeks.


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